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Hello, Day 9 of Holiday Game Suggestions! Today’s entry is will be short, but it’s for a game that I feel deserves a much wider audience than it has. Let me tell you all about the Baffle!. (No, that’s not a typo. “Baffle!” is the full name of the game.) This one is independently published, so most stores don’t carry it.

Baffle! is a variant of Sudoku that uses colors and shapes rather than numbers. There are 25 pieces in five different shapes and colors, and a 5×5 playing board. To win Baffle! you must have a full board that doesn’t repeat a single color or shape in any column, row, or corner-to-corner diagonal. There are 60 puzzle cards full of different starting-states for the board, each with a different difficulty.

What sets Baffle! apart from other puzzle games is that it has different rules variations, including competitive multiplayer. A possible way to play with multiple people is that the person who places the last piece wins. On a player’s turn, they can add or remove a piece; or swap two pieces around the board, or from the board to the unplayed pile. Since many of the puzzles have multiple solutions, the challenge now includes figuring out which one everyone else is going for and cutting them off.

Baffle! is most certainly a game for fans of logic puzzles, and it also has great potential as a learning tool for all ages. This is especially true with the competitive or cooperative multiplayer aspect. I could easily see this working well in a classroom, after-school club, or senior center. This one gets a big thumbs up, folks. If you’re a fan of logic games, this one’s for you.

(And I can say personally that the game is highly addictive. For you see, when Pegasus Games first started carrying Baffle! there was an open copy at the counter for customers to look through. But after a week or so it was obvious that Baffle! was causing some major loss of productivity on the employee end, and the open copy was put on the demo shelf.)

About the Author

James Nettum started playing RPG’s while in fourth grade, sneaking in sessions of AD&D on the playground of his Catholic school. He went pro at the age of 25 when he took a position at Pegasus Games in Madison, Wisconsin. He’s been there 10 years and plays every sort of game, except collectibles.

James started posting a 12 Days of Holiday Gaming via Facebook on Black Friday in 2016. I enjoyed the recommendations and wanted to share them. With his permission, I’m reblogging the series here at Chicago Geek Guy.